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The last red bream I saw

The last red bream I saw caught came from one of the reef marks out off Newquay. Then suddenly, they were gone. Not just thinned out, but to all intents and purposes, from my perspective at least, they might just as well have been driven to a point of sudden mass extinction. How could such a prolific offshore fish nose dive in so spectacular a fashion. Angler pressure was mentioned, though if I'm honest, while I was particularly interested in catching them, with such good wreck and reef prospects for all manner of other stuff around the West Country back then, I don't think too many other anglers were that fussed. Then by pure chance one evening while chatting with Sid Pender down at Penzance, what may well have been the cause, or at least a good part of it, suddenly came to light when he commented on an incident involving a large Scottish commercial boat which was either a mid water trawling, or a partner in a pair, out looking for mackerel close to the Runnel Stone. This boat brought in six thousand stone of 'unidentified' by-catch which turned out to be adult red bream, pretty much wiping out the entire breeding stock. In the twenty years following that incident, Sid caught just two red bream. In the lead up to chatting through that body blow incident, the same Irish Red Bream conversation also made mention of how the small local inshore boats at the end of the mackerel feathering season would cut their feather rigs down in terms of hook numbers, add pieces of mackerel to those that were left, and again around the Runnel Stone, have a good couple of months hand-lining for red bream, which pretty much sums up arguably the best outline terminal tackle approach for catching them. I started off fishing baited feathers out over the Eddystone, but quickly realised that as versatile as this approach can be across a very wide range of reef species, there were better ways of achieving a much improved similar end. Building on the feathers pattern, because let's face it, most terminal rigs are little more than variations on a very small number of basic themes, we adapted the three droppers above the lead idea by using 218

much stronger sharper hooks, and built ourselves a bream trace that could cope with pretty much anything, with the added bonus that it also brought other species into the mix for those occasions when the bream weren't feeding too well. It was an all monofilament rig comprising a main spine of sixty to eighty pounds breaking strain with three lighter droppers tied to swivels trapped in position by beads, and because we didn't have crimps to fix their position back then, using such strong mono for the backbone of the trace meant that we could simply tie a knot either side of the beads and trap the dropper that way, knowing the trace would still be strong enough for conger or ling should they come along. To help ensure that one might, the bottom dropper was tied at around three feet in length with a 6/0 hook to the same heavy mono with two shorter lighter droppers above it, the middle one with a 2/0 hook, and on the top dropper a size one to ensure we had all options covered. The only proviso was spacing the droppers such that they couldn't self tangle on the drop, and it was a very productive rig. Some might say that the small top hook was a wee bit flimsy for what might come along. Even when baiting it with the tiniest of mackerel strips. And while there were occasions when it did manage to bring up big fish, on others it didn't last the distance. The thinking behind it though was plainly and simply ticks on the bucket list, which was still in its infancy back then. Out over the Eddystone, though it possibly wasn't potentially as species rich as it might be today in the wake of rising sea temperatures, there were still interesting and unusual fish to be had, the most memorable of which was a relative of the bass, the beautifully patterned comber. Talking to people in the south west, both anglers and commercials, as you might expect, it seems that the Scottish trawler(s) working the Runnel Stone that fateful day didn't quite scoop up the entire breeding stock, though the encounter certainly made a massive dent in it. Over the past few years, particularly around the Channel Islands, there have been signs of this slow growing late maturing bream species tentatively but steadily struggling to make something of a measured comeback. Mainly small fish for the moment, known locally as chad's, with a few middle range specimens dotted about here and there. But gone still are the days when you could fill a fish box with four to five pound red bream, and out over the wrecks, not unrealistically set your sights much higher, with the biggest ever specimen brought to the scales dragging the needle round to over 9½ pounds on Mevagissey harbour. The shore record not unexpectedly is a Channel Island fish. Aldernay to be precise. The best specimen landed in Welsh waters, though small by comparison to the south west is still a creditable fish considering the circumstances, weighing in at a touch over one and a quarter pounds from Amlwch on Anglesey, which is more like a chunk of Cornwall dropped into the Irish Sea than it is the rest of Wales. Surprisingly, the Scots too get in on the act with a more than creditable fish of four pounds ten ounces caught off Ardnamurchan on the western mainland looking south towards the Isle of Mull. Phill Williams, Looe 1970’s Associated audio interview numbers: 104. 219